Treasure not the golden thread suit; treasure more your time of youth
Pluck straight the blooming flower - it begs to be; not till it wilts on an empty branch

劝君莫惜金缕衣，劝君惜取少年时。 花开堪折直须折，莫待无花空折枝

A poem recorded by the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu, a contemporary of  Li Shangyin, in honour Du Qiuniang (who might have been the author), who was once a imperial concubine but was expelled from the palace for being on the wrong side of a succession struggle – she entered the palace as part of the confiscated “chattel” of a defeated rebel warlord, in whose entourage she was a singer-dancer. However, whoever that composed the poem must have misunderstood the meaning of “gold thread suit”, thinking that it was some kind of dancer costume or audience luxury wear, while in fact it was the burial cloth of Han royalty

which is constructed by sewing together thousands of pieces of fine jade.

a elaborate process requiring hundreds of workmen over many years: good quality jade need to be mined, sliced, polished, drilled with small holes, and sewn together. Burying a Han emperor or royal prince might take less manpower than sculpting the thousands of terracotta soldiers that the Qin emperor tomb used, but the diference would have been small.

During Zhou times, princes were also buried with jade ornaments, but in small quantities and differently fitted: there is first a fask mask, consructed by laying jade pieces on a cloth covering the face


then an elaborate necklace is strung together, covering both a chest and the back of the buried person


Somewhere during the period between Warring States and Han, the number of jade pieces used in a burial increased to cover the complete body and gaps in between were eliminated by sewing them together, with silk, silver or gold threads depending on the persons rank.

Ancient Chinese believed that jade was the food of the gods, and even in Ming and Qing times, the practice of presenting wine, jade and silk in rituals honour heaven or famous past people was still being followed. Some where in the neolithic era, proximity of jade was believed to be able to preserve a dead person’s life essence. While the Shangs merely buried some jade objects with nobility, Zhous used jade body ornaments; the Hans not only wrapped the whole royal body in jade, the various orifices were also plugged with jade pieces in the belief they prevented life spirits from escaping. The cicada, which upon death drops from the tree branch it was holding onto soil, was believed to be reborn when its offsprings subsequently hatched in soil and emerged to climb up the trunk. Putting jade cicadas into a dead person’s mouth was therefore supposed to help with human rebirth


while jade bigs, symbolyzing wealth, were put into the dead person’s hands to hold


Other items were used to plug the ears, nostrils, and even anus/vagina.

Given the enormous expenses involved in burying a royal personage, the Han royalty would seems to be mainly occupied by the task of extracting wealth from the people in order to pay for their funerals, a clique obsessed with the other world. In the words of Li Shangyin, writing a thousand years later

贾生
宣室求贤访逐臣，贾生才调更无伦。可怜夜半虚前席，不问苍生问鬼神！The Scholar Jia
Talent search brings exiles to the audience hall; About Jia Yi’s scholarship none can doubt at all
He held the floor all night, but it’s sad to know; He wasnt asked about people, only about gods